Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Virginia

Re: Garnishments on medical bill.

no, the information you received was incorrect.

your insurance business is between you and your insurance company, not between the dentist and the insurance company - he has no legal obligation to help you out with that at all unless he positively undertook to do so as part of your deal with him.

they're not garnishing because of medical bills, at this point, they're garnishing because of a judgment. the best thing at this point is to negotiate a deal with the collection attorney - they'll usually settle for less than the full amount if it means they get money quickly without much work. if you let it drag on, you'll end up paying more, because you have to pay the costs of collection (filing fees, etc.) and there's interest piling up at nine percent per year.

there are a couple of things you can do, if you're in time to do them. if the oral surgeon represented to you that they'd take care of the insurance and failed to do it, you can sue them for violation of the virginia consumer protection act; if the collection agent violated the fair debt collection practices act in any way you can sue them. if there was anything wrong with the way the judgment was obtained, lack of jurisdiction, etc., then you can move the court to have the judgment set aside. but all these things have deadlines, you can't sit around wishing it would go away.

there is no magic bullet, no simple, nonconfrontational solution.